1. Technical Field
This application relates to the field of storage devices, and more particularly to the field of migrating data between storage devices.
2. Description of Related Art
It is desirable to be able to move user applications and data among servers and storage arrays in a non-disruptive fashion while the user is actively using the applications and/or data. Although various techniques exist to facilitate non-disruptive data migration, these techniques do not necessarily properly transfer I/O state information. However, many systems rely on metadata, such as I/O state information, for proper operation. For example, in some computer cluster configurations, each of the computers maintains its state (active or passive) and, in some cases, changes its state, based on I/O metadata. Such a system may not operate properly if data was migrated without also properly migrating the metadata.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system that can migrate data as well as associated metadata, including state information, associated with the data.